The necessity of being born again is the central claim in the passage, directly addressing Nicodemus's inquiry in John 3:1-21. The message explains that spiritual rebirth is not a physical one but a transformation by the Spirit, essential for entering the Kingdom of God. It emphasizes that this new birth is a personal and essential step, regardless of one's moral standing or past religious practices. The sermon concludes by urging listeners to personally receive Christ as their Savior, highlighting that this decision determines eternal destiny.
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John chapter three, reading from verse one, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born again. He cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit. He cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not, that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. It heard a lot of rumors about this man Jesus of Nazareth. And so he steals into the presence of the Lord Jesus. And the first thing he says is, Master, we know that you must be a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.
Now the Lord Jesus, turns to this questioning ruler of the Jews. And he answers him in words that would as much puzzle you and I if we had never heard them before now, as they did for Nicodemus. He said, Nicodemus, truly, truly, I say unto you, you must be born again. Now, Nicodemus, scratching his head, I'm sure, thinks to himself and says to the Lord Jesus, how can this be? How can an old man enter his mother's womb the second time and be born? Now that's a very logical answer, isn't it? Answering the Lord Jesus' statement, very, very striking statement with that question.
And the Lord proceeds to tell him the story of the birth from above, a spiritual birth, nothing to do whatsoever with a physical birth. That's all done and that's all passed. Now I look into faces tonight and I don't know most of you folks. And that gives me a little bit of an advantage. But I ask you tonight, because they are not my words, they are the words of the Lord Jesus that he spoke to a ruler of the Jews one night long ago. And I ask you in the presence of God, have you been born again? On those five words hang your eternal balance. On five simple words, you will either go out and into an eternity of bliss with the Savior in heaven.
Or as many people who awoke this morning in seeming hell, they have gone into a lost eternity. And all they can look forward to forever is a place called hell and eventually the lake of fire. And many of them have gone out thinking that they were right for eternity. Or at least hoping. Now the Lord Jesus offers you five words. It couldn't be any more simple. And I ask you tonight, have you been born again? If you have not, then we take the words of the Son of God and we make them our own. And we want to say in kindness that if you've never been born again, you are not on the road to heaven.
You aren't. It doesn't matter how good you are, how excellent your neighbors think you are as a neighbor. It does not matter if you're a wonderful employee at work. All of the things that we consider wonderful things in life, and they are important, and we love nice people. God looks at you and he sees your sin. He sees the same unforgiven sins that caused his son to go to the cross that we were hearing about. And God hates sin. Loves you the sinner, but he despises your sin. It cost him his only begotten son. And he says to you tonight, you must be born again now initially we must say this it is intensely intensely personal I look into faces of young people here tonight I go back twenty three and a half years to the night that I was saved February of nineteen sixty six I look back to that moment actually the night before and it was one of the most horrible evenings I've ever spent in my life never slept Couldn't even think of closing my eyes that night and going to sleep.
I thought that when I got old, or if I was on my deathbed, or if I was, imagine this, seeing a car hurtling to me and knew that there was no escaping it, that in that split second I could trust Christ as Savior. I'd committed verses to memory, whole chapters of the Bible. In our Sunday school programs at our assembly, they had given us these long poems, two and three page poems of these long things and we committed them to memory and we knew the gospel so well. But on the fifth of February, nineteen sixty six of Saturday night, sat in my room all night long with the lights on, disturbing my parents all the way through the night just to make sure that the Lord hadn't come.
And I sat there and realized I knew nothing at all about the gospel. And the fact that I had grandparents in heaven that I had a grandmother who lived with us who at that point had been saved for almost eighty years that both of my parents were on the way to heaven and my only brother it all of a sudden hit me that I personally had never been born again and I couldn't sleep now I say this kindly if you're with us tonight and you've never been saved and you've never had that moment when you personally have come to the point of acknowledging your sin, simply looking at yourself as God sees you, not as your family or your neighbor sees you.
And that nice veneer that we all coat ourselves with, if you've looked at yourself as God sees you, I must tell you it's not a pretty sight. And once you get to that point, you absolutely don't want anything but to be saved. You cannot imagine continuing in your sins. And so I ask you tonight, have you been born again? Before God tonight, have you had that moment in your life when in all of your lost guiltiness, you acknowledged your sin and your need and you were born again? Now again, I just must hasten.
And so I will say this, my friends, you must be born again. I heard a preacher one time say some very striking words. They're not original. And he said, if people only realized why they must be saved, if they were ever taken to the very precipice of a lost eternity, and were allowed to stand on the very brink of hell, to feel the intense heat, to hear the cries of torment, to realize what it means to go out into a godless eternity, they wouldn't waste two seconds to be saved.
We sit here tonight, it's perfectly comfortable, isn't it? None of the authorities in Atlantic Iowa screeching into the parking lot now to arrest us for meeting like this to preach the gospel. We're so highly favored, but we are here tonight to tell you in very simple terms that if you were to go out of this meeting tonight and die, or if all of us, this company here who are Christians, were caught up and Jesus came back tonight, and the Lord Jesus took us to be with himself, you would be left behind for certain judgment. It's not the pleasant part of the gospel, but we are living in a day when the gospel today is being preached with very little warning.
It's a gospel of love. And how we thrill to that. It is the greatest example of love that the world will ever know here in His love. Not that we love God, but that He loved us. And He gave His Son to be the propitiation, the very meeting place for our sins. But we must warn you tonight, my friends, you must be born again. Two years ago, this past June on Father's Day, I was the first visit that I'd ever made to a little meeting in Oxford, Pennsylvania. I preached the gospel that morning at their request. I was delighted to do it. And I sat down. I had noticed a couple sitting with an older woman. Appeared to be in their thirties or so.
And it just so happened that where I was sitting was right in front of them. And we were singing the last hymn. And I sat down somewhere about in this side of the building. And I felt a hand on my shoulder. And I looked into the face of a woman. Turned out she was thirty-one years of age. And the tears rolling off the end of her chin. Thought it was her husband that she was sitting with. It turned out it was her brother. And she said, I want to talk to you now. I said, what's the problem? She said, I'm not leaving here until I'm saved. I said, well, let's go somewhere and talk. I sat down and I said, I asked her name. Her name was Susie Carter. And I said, Susie, what's the problem? She said, I'm thirty-one. She said, since I was a girl of thirteen, when I walked down an aisle at an evangelistic campaign with a whole lot of other people.
The preacher prayed over me. In fact, my brother was there that night. And he's two years younger than I am. So he was eleven. And right after that, we were baptized and brought into the church. She said, until now, I thought I was all right for eternity. She said, I only discovered this morning that I'm not. And I am not leaving this building until I get saved. Now what a wonderful thing to find a person who knows that they must be born again. We spent about forty-five minutes together and it was marvelous to see the Lord coming in and saving her. She said, I have to go out and tell my brother, ah, he was waiting at the door.
He'd been saved five minutes before she, to the point now we're eighteen members of that family, including her husband and two children. Her sister and brother-in-law and their three children. Her father six months before he went into the presence of his Savior. Her mother that was there that morning, eighteen people in that family have trusted Christ and come into that little meeting for simply one thing got a hold one morning of a girl that she absolutely had to be born again. You will never be saved. I say this kindly, I trust. You will never be saved. You will never know your sins forgiven. if it doesn't get a hold of you with one hundred percent of your being that you an individual must be born again it's not something to add on to your life it is a thorough change of life it's a new foot a new direction for our footsteps it's a new relationship he gives us a whole new us any man be in Christ he is a new creation old things are passed away Behold, all things are become new.
But my friend, in this day of shallow Christianity, we must tell you that you must be born again. You meet people in your travels. It's interesting. I find it intriguing. It makes you dig a little bit. And you'll say to them, are you a believer? Are you a Christian? Yes, yes, I'm a Christian. Oh, when did you get saved? Well, when I was young, when you were young, how old were you? Oh, I don't know, about four or five. Tell me how you got saved. That's when it gets interesting. My friends, I cannot imagine not remembering the night I got saved.
I was only twelve. It wasn't that I was an old person, but my life changed. And I have not been the same since. I had a grandmother who died three months shy of a hundred. There were things that you could talk to her about with her that happened three minutes before and she didn't remember them. But you take her back eighty-four years, eighty-eight years, I'm sorry, to a little girl just shy of twelve in Renfrewshire, Scotland. And she could tell you like it happened the night before of how the Lord worked and dealt in her life. And the Holy Spirit moved in a miraculous way. and the first little member of her family saved out of the Church of Scotland, my grandmother at the age of eleven.
It's very definite to be born again. The little island of Menowar Key where we've been privileged to go and minister about eleven times in the Bahamas happens to be the vacation spot for a very well-known Baptist minister by the name of Charles Stanley. It's been our privilege to meet Dr. Stanley on a few occasions there and to sit and chat at length with him, marvelous Christian leader, had opportunity of asking him a story for him to repeat it from the horse's mouth that I had heard attributed to him. When he was president or the senior vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention, it's been his privilege to be invited to the White House, generally speaking about the first of each year, to talk over ostensibly religious terms and religious things and trends with the sitting presidents.
He recounted to me of his first visit in January of nineteen seventy six with President Jimmy Carter. A number of religious leaders were in the room and said, President Carter, you campaigned on a platform of being born again. And he said, yes, that's true. And he said, I'm just curious, sir, as to when and how you were born again. And he said, well, Dr. Stanley, you realize that my mother was a Christian before I was born. She was a Baptist. And my father was an alcoholic, but my mother took us every Sunday to church. Dr. Stanley said, okay. Yeah?
And he said, no, sir. He said, I told you, Dr. Stanley, I've gone to church all my life. He said, well, Mr. President, respectfully, sir, when were you born again? He said, Dr. Stanley, were you not listening? My mother took us to church and I go every Sunday of my life. Dr. Stanley said he went away with one of the hollowest feelings that a human being can ever have. Four years later, at his first meeting with President Reagan, he said, Mr. President, you stand for family values. You are for restoring prayer and Bible reading in the schools, and you are against the murderous Supreme Court decision of abortion, and very many things dear to the cause of Christianity.
So I'd like to ask you, sir, are you born again? He said, it was kind of comical because President Reagan said, well, he said, I'm no theologian, but I am simple enough to believe that when the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus in John chapter three and verse sixteen, those glorious words in the gospel, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life, that that whosoever includes Ronald W. Reagan. He said, I don't know if that's what you're looking for, Dr. Stanley, but that's all I have for eternity.
Dr. Stanley said, Mr. President, then we have at least that in common because that's all I go out into eternity with. Once upon a time I realized that God so loved me, that he gave his only begotten son for me. Now I trust the man is truly saved. I've had opportunity to meet him in the White House. And Mrs. Reagan too. I was not able to ask him personally whether he'd been born again. And I've always regretted that. But if he is honestly relying on that fraternity, he has nothing more than the most saved person in this building. My friends, have you ever been born again?
A definite time when the old preachers used to say, and a place where and a manner how you came to trust Christ as Savior. This is real. We are in an uncertain world. The only thing that we can predict in this world is that the sin will continue to grow worse and worse. It will be blinked at more and more. It will be tolerated increasingly more in society. And we as Christians are increasingly affected by it, aren't we? And we tolerate it. And we say, well, the Bible says it's going to happen. And in it comes. My friends, that's not much of a prediction to give you any hope, is it, if you're not a believer.
But can I give you a prediction tonight that you can rest your weight for eternity on? If you die in your sins tonight, you will never be in heaven. Never. If you die without knowing the Lord Jesus as your personal Savior and being born again, you will be with the rich man of Luke sixteen, lifting up your eyes in torments, asking for a single drop of water to cool your tongue. But may I leave you tonight with a prediction that is a whole lot more fun to talk about.
And I have a feeling that there are a couple of hundred people sitting in this room. Were I able and were we to have the time, we could go around this room tonight and have a lot of people stand up, and they would verify this prediction that if tonight you as an individual were born again, You would wonder why you waited so long. The hymn writer said, If I can only tell him as I know him, My Redeemer, who has brightened all my way, if I could tell how precious is his presence, then I'm sure that you would make him yours today. Could I tell it? Could I tell it?
How the sunshine of his presence lights my way? Oh, I would tell it. I would tell it. And I know that you would make him yours today. We uphold to you tonight a Savior who has at the place called Calvary at infinite cost paid for your sins that you would not have to pay for them eternally. God grant that tonight, as individuals, you might own your guilt before God and be born again. I wonder if we might turn back please just to the previous chapter, to John's Gospel chapter two, and we're going to read just a little of the context in which this story occurs.
As you know, the Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Judah, but being hounded by Herod, he and his Family fled to Egypt, and when they returned, they settled in the city of Nazareth on the edge of the Jezreel Valley, the Valley of Armageddon in the lower Galilee. At thirty years of age, he sat down in the synagogue in Nazareth, and he read to the accompanied gathering that morning the promise of God that he would send his servant who would do some wonderful things in the world he would of including many things preach the gospel to the poor the recovery of sight to the blind deliverance to the captive he would visit the imprisoned and he would preach the acceptable year of the Lord the people were so intense that they threw him out of town and tried to stone him to death ironically attempting to throw him into the valley of Armageddon, the very valley where the day of vengeance of our God will occur in the day to come.
The Lord Jesus left that part of the country and moved up to the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, to the town of, excuse me, to the town of Capernaum. And there he lived for the last three and a half years of his life on earth. And our story occurs early on in the ministry of the Lord Jesus. as he is invited to a wedding in Cana, about sixteen miles from Capernaum. John chapter two and verse one and the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there and both Jesus was called and his disciples to the marriage.
And when they wanted wine, that is when they lacked it, they ran out of wine, The mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her woman, What have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you do. And there were set there six water pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the water pots with water, And they fill them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw out now and bear unto the governor of the feast, And they bear.
When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, And knew not whence it was, but the servants which drew the water knew. The governor of the feast called the bridegroom, And saith unto him, Every man of the beginning thus sets forth good wine. And when men have well drunk, than that which is worse, but thou hast kept the good wine until now. This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory, and his disciples believed on him. Now please, verse twenty-three.
Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did, but Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man. For he knew what was in man. There was a man. And so our story continues. If I had been a PR man that day, I would have said that the Lord Jesus selected the wrong place for his first miracle. Cana of Galilee is a dusty little town, a backwater town up on the back road from Nazareth to Magdala.
I don't suppose there was a big crowd there that day, and to make matters worse, he did it sort of secretively, didn't he, so that the master of the feast didn't even know who had provided the wine. Not much way to get to advertising, was it? But of course the Lord Jesus wasn't interested in advertising. He wasn't here to show off. He was here to introduce us to God. And if you want to know what God is like, then you can look at the Lord Jesus and you can know exactly what he's like. There's a strange notion about that God is an angry, vindictive kind of God.
in heaven and the Lord Jesus was loving and kind and patient and generous and all that. My friend, the Lord Jesus is God made known in the flesh. And he came to show us what God was like. And John, who accompanied the Lord Jesus through these years, watched very astutely as the Lord Jesus dealt with people. He saw him respond to his critics. take buffeting and abuse. They called him names. They sought to embarrass him. He saw him flattered when people wanted to make him the king.
He saw him in the hard times. He saw him in the good times. He saw him among his family members. And out of all of these experiences, John selected for us seven what he calls signs. That is, seven evidences for the reality of the claims of the Messiah. Now I warn you, if Jesus is who he says he is, and you do not receive him as your Savior, you're in serious trouble. If he isn't who he says he is, then don't believe it.
This is one of the things I think we must stress as we preach the word of God, and that is that God never asks you to believe any more than you can believe. He doesn't ask you to do something you can't do. But what I'd like to ask you this evening is to go with me as far as you can go. To believe what you can about the Lord. You see, if you step a little into the light, God will give you greater light. But if you turn on the light, and go into the darkness. The Bible says, how great is that darkness? If you don't understand tonight, I tell you the light will shine upon you. For the scripture has promised that if you seek God with your whole heart, you'll find him.
But if you go and hide in a moral cave and shut your ears and close your eyes, then don't blame God if the light doesn't shine on you. I meet people all the time, you see. who really don't want the Bible to be true. They think they're having a good time and they're afraid God's going to spoil their fun. And so they don't want the Bible to be true. And I say to them, listen, if I could prove to you, if I could prove to you that Jesus is who he said he is, would you receive him as your Savior? And they say, well, I don't think you can prove that. I said, I didn't say that. I didn't say I could do it. But if I could do it, would you receive him? You know, they'll fight tooth and nail.
but they won't say that they'd receive him. And this is what the Lord Jesus said. You will not come to me that you might have life. It's not a matter of the intellect. It's a matter of the will. And so it's a very important thing for us to come to terms with this. Who is this man, Jesus of Nazareth? The Lord Jesus wanted to manifest who God was. He wanted to manifest the glory. That means he wanted to show us what God was like. He attended this marriage.
And I think it's an interesting thing. That the first miracle of the Lord Jesus was at a marriage. After all, that's where we meet man, isn't it? At a marriage. God has provided for Adam a wife. and the father gives away the bride. Why, what a wonderful marriage that was. How times have changed. How times have changed. If this is in fact a sign, then perhaps there's more to the story than just a nice little story. Maybe we're being told something about the human predicament.
They ran out of wine. Now standing by the door, there were six water pots of stone that were used for religious purification. The Jews had certain rituals that they went through to purify themselves with water. Oh, there's the rub. That's like all religion, isn't it? It's superficial. It may make you feel good for a while, but it can't touch your heart. But we read that they were empty. And how empty religion is today?
How vain and useless it is? What was the wine there for at the wedding? Well, I suggest it was there to enhance their joy, wasn't it? And we might suggest that the symbol here, the picture is, that they were running out of joy. Maybe that's true of the human heart, is it? But there are things that we anticipate with a great deal of delight. Maybe it is a marriage. Maybe it's a job, a career. Maybe it's joining a club or acquiring a certain desired object, a relationship.
And it seems so good. It seems... better than our wildest dreams but the wine runs out not the only marriage where the wines run out is it they were there for the purifying of the Jews they've been left out by the side you know they didn't bring them into the party If you want to spoil a good party, well, bring God into it. That's what the world thinks. And you know, that's the whole problem with so many marriages today. Even an atheist doesn't mind a little religion at the ceremony.
But you wouldn't want to bring God to the party, would you? Talk about throwing cold water on the party. And if you want to spoil somebody's shallow happiness in this world, a religious person, you begin to talk to them about their purity, their purification. How is it with your sin, my friend? You know, you can get very civil people quite upset all of a sudden. You begin to talk about their sin. They think it's a rather rude subject. I'm a good person, they say. I give a good, what?
Clean... Life. Is that right? A good, clean life. They are laboring under the delusion that what God wants from us is a good, clean life. No any Bible verse that says that? Here's what the Bible says. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy mind and all thy soul and all thy strength. And him only shalt thou serve. God doesn't ask you for a good clean life. The only thing he'll be satisfied with is if you are madly in love with him. A lot of people and their religion is, well, God, just keep your distance.
I'll do your little thing. What do you want me to do? Pay so much money. Go to the safe. Say my purse. Do confession. Read this. Do that. Okay, then God, leave me alone and let me have my party. It's a strange notion. that somehow the God who made us with the capacity for joy isn't interested in our joy isn't that sort of a strange conclusion the Lord Jesus came and said do you know why I came I came that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly bubbling up and running over that's what I'm interested in we used to sing a little chorus if you want joy real joy wonderful joy, let Jesus come into your heart.
Your sins he'll wash away, your night he'll turn today. Let Jesus come into your heart. If you want to ask a real Christian the secret of their joy, well, you bring up the same subject. You ask them about their purification. Oh, they'll tell you. Oh, they think they're better than anyone. If you bring up their sin, well, they'll agree with you. They really are sinners. You see, this is just where people miss it. There's only one requirement for qualifying for God's salvation, for entering into all the blessings of heaven.
Just one qualification. You have to be a chief executive officer of a Fortune five hundred companies. Is that right? Thank God. That's not the answer. Got to be on the social register. Is that it? No. No. You have to know you're a sinner. That's the tough part, you see. I spoke to a lady one day, a very fashionable lady, and we had quite a nice conversation. She was a brilliant conversationalist until I brought up the issue of her sin. And she was quite offended. She was deeply distressed that I had called her a sinner.
And so I begged her pardon. And I said I was sorry that I had misjudged her. But I asked if I might shake her hand because I'd never met a perfect person before. She said, well, I didn't say that. So, well, there must be some mistake then. Are you a sinner? Are you not a sinner? God's standard is perfection. Now, if you've fallen short of perfection, you're a sinner. Adam and Eve, did they sin? Well, yes. Well, how many times? But just one.
People have this strange notion about the way scales, you know. I don't know where they get this from. God's going to put the good deeds on one side and the bad deeds on the other side, and we'll just see how they weigh out. Now, just Just suppose, we've all seen a vehicle before. Four tires, okay? This way, please. I mean, we talk about little kids being distracted. These people that are talking about the waist scale sometime before God. And so I say, well, if you're really serious about that, you probably would want to know before you get there, How much a sin weighs?
You think that would interest you? I mean, don't assume. If we're weighing, say, marbles and apples, don't assume that marbles weigh the same as apples, would you? No. So don't assume that good deeds and bad deeds weigh the same thing. I wouldn't imagine that you want to do that and then get caught when you get to heaven, assuming that's the way it's done. So how much do you think one sin weighs? Any idea? I'll tell you this. I don't know how long the angels were in heaven before they rebelled. How many good deeds they did. But for one sin, God cast them down to hell.
I don't know how long Adam and Eve were in the garden. I know Adam named all the animals. That must have been quite a job. And that they dressed and kept the garden. And then for one sin... God casts them out of His presence. My Bible says that if you break one command, you've broken the law. No use if you're stopped by the state trooper out here for speeding and you say, but wait a minute, I keep the weeds out of my garden. And I defrost the refrigerator on a regular basis. I register to vote. I look after my kids. You know, I say, well, what's that got to do with anything?
When you stand before God at last, He's going to ask you one question. What did you do with my son? Did you receive him? Did you refuse him? I don't ask you whether you can believe that Jesus turned water into wine, but will you at least agree with him that there are are some problems in life that are too big for us to handle? But sometimes the wine runs out in life? Maybe he has the answer. Now, it's an interesting little experiment, isn't it?
I was speaking to a group of high school students this past spring, the end of the school year in our old high school. It was quite an honor and privilege. And after I'd finished speaking about Christianity for eighty minutes, almost, one of the students said, I think this is a bunch of rubbish. Never heard such baloney in all my life. God in heaven, you talk to God, He saved you, all this stuff. What a bunch of rubbish. I said, I'm glad you said that. I think there are a lot of people who think that. But just for a minute, suppose... that I had some sort of exotic juice that you'd never tasted before.
None of you. Say, cumquat juice. So I bring in some cumquat juice and I give half the clasp here cumquat juice and the other clasp doesn't get anything. And this half tastes it and then I say, oh, what do you think? This is the best stuff I've ever tasted in my life. It's great. Great to get it. The other half says, what a bunch of rubbish. It's awful. It's terrible. I say, who are you going to believe? Everyone who's ever trusted the Lord Jesus as their Savior, they say he's the most wonderful person. He saves you, gives you peace. And the people who haven't trusted him say, well, that's a bunch of rubbish. Now, who would you believe? That's why the Bible says, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.
If it's not true, don't believe it. But how would you know if you didn't trust him? Well, the question obviously comes up, what does it mean to be born again? I mean, to say, you must be born again. Well, that's great. That's the one thing we need. And then somebody asked me, what does it mean? You say, well, I don't know, but that's what you need to do. Well, that's no good, is it? What does it mean? The Lord Jesus went from Cana to Jerusalem. And when he got there, there was a crowd gathering around him. And it says there that many... believed on him well what do you know here are some of the faithful now they're on their way to heaven is that right oh but but then it says jesus did not commit himself to them say that would be fairly frightening wouldn't it
if you said that you believed on him and then when you got to heaven he said I'm sorry but I didn't commit myself to you whatever that means so you can and that is because you are hardening your own heart to the truth of God but then there were other people you see and we read that there were some the seed fell on ground that sprang up for a bit but the thorns choked it off now what's this I want to make one thing perfectly clear that the thing that grows up the plant that grows up is not the person or you'll really get confused if you think that.
The person is the ground. The kind of ground is the kind of heart you have, whether you're willing to receive the Word of God or not. And there are some people who give a superficial acceptance to the Word of God, but as the Word of God begins to take control of their lives, they say, hey, wait a minute. I've got some other interest in life here. I've got cares and riches and pleasures. And if you don't mind, the Word of God isn't all that important to me. Have they really received the Lord Jesus? Have they really put their trust in Him? No, their trust is in their riches and their pleasures. And so they give a superficial assent to the Word of God.
Sounds good to me. Some people will agree with everything you say. You're a sinner. Yep, nobody's perfect. And Christ died for sinners. Oh, I believe that. And Christ died for you. Oh, absolutely. Are they saved? Well, there are some people who will give superficial acceptance to all the facts. Check, check, check, check. But they've never committed themselves to him. They've never let the Word of God get down where it really matters. Get its root into their heart. And so there were people who gave superficial acceptance to the Lord Jesus. Lots of people like that say they're Christians, carry a Bible, do good works, but they've never been born again.
Now what? Well, in John chapter one, we're told that many didn't want him. The Jews turned him away, but to as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become the sons of God, even to those that believed on his name. In other words, to believe on the Lord Jesus means to receive him. This is what the Bible calls the obedience of faith. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And as the word of God is preached and you say yes to God's words, then you have the faith to receive God's gift.
I think one of the clearest stories that explains what it means to trust is the story of an old stonebreaker. I told the story here, I think before, but it bears repeating. Over in Scotland in the old age, before they had asphalt roads, they used to pay men a cheap salary to break up boulders and fill up with gravel, the potholes, and the road. It was a backbreaking, laborious task. An old man was working away on the hot sun. When along came a young creature, stopped to talk to the old man and invited him to a gospel meeting just like this. Well, the old man wasn't a Scotsman for nothing. And he said, I'll tell you what, I'll come to your meeting if you break stones for me for two hours.
Again, the fellow threw off his jacket, picked up the hammer. The old man went to sit in the shade of a tree. An hour went by, an hour and three quarters. Almost two hours was up, and the old man realized he'd forced himself into a corner. He was going to have to go to the meeting. So I thought he tried to wiggle out of it one more time. He sauntered over to where the young fellow was working. And he said, listen, there's no sense of me going to your meeting. I've heard all you fellows preach before. And you always just got one string. You pluck all the time. You got to be born again. You got to trust. You got to believe. Nobody ever tells me what it means to trust God. I mean, how do you do that? If you can't tell me that, there's no sense of me going to your meeting.
The young man looked at his watch, he said, my time's up, laid down a hammer, went to pick up his jacket. He said, I'll tell you what it means to trust. It means to take the word of a stonebreaker that I've never met before, who promised me that if I break stones for him for two hours, he'd come to the meeting. And if you're a man of your word, you'll be there. The old stonebreaker looked at him and said, do you mean to tell me that that's what it means to trust God? just to take God at his word? A man said, I know of no other kind of trust than just to take God at his word. God says, you personally are the sinner that Jesus died to save.
Will you agree with him or will you argue with him? Every one of us is born with a little defendant, a little lawyer for the defense inside. As soon as our sin is brought up, the little lawyer jumps up and says, I object. And the Bible says that there are many in the world today who are going about seeking to justify themselves. It'll never do with God. It may work in your community. It may work with your family. It'll never work with God because He knows your heart. He knows the sins you've forgotten and the sins you wish you could forget. Sins of your mind, sins of your passion, sins of commission and omission.
He knows them all. Can't justify yourself before God, but here's the good news. Because the Lord Jesus, when he died on the cross, paid for your personal sins, your rebellion against God, God can be both just, having received full payment at the hands of the Savior and the justifier of those who trust in Jesus. You'll have to receive it as a gift, however. No working for this one. No doing anything. It's all been done. And to be born again means to come to the end of yourself and just give up trying. Give up working and give up paying and give up arguing.
And just say, oh God, I agree. I am a guilty sinner. But Jesus died for me. And then to receive as a free gift the salvation that God gives through His Son. new life from God. You know why you must be born again. This was not spoken to a moral leper, my friend. This was spoken to one of the upstanding members of the community. And he didn't say Nicodemus, if you got saved, you know, God would really help you out. He was speaking of the moral obligation of it.
Why? Because he said, if you want to get to heaven, you'll have to be born again. If I took a fish and said, I'm going to teach the fish to fly, here, just a little positive thinking, let's see how we do. Here we go, fishy. Splat. Come on, fish cooperate. I'm working, you work. Okay, here we are. I said, well, it won't work, will it? Why? The fish needs a different nature to fly. It's not built to fly. It's built for a different environment. It's built for the ocean, not for the air. And my friend, you're not fit for heaven. You know what heaven's like? One place worse than hell for a sinner, and that's heaven.
Imagine being with a bunch of psalms singing Christians forever and not being able to get out and go mad. You need to love God. You need to love Christ to be in heaven. There's an old track printed by Gospel Folio Press that talks about two men on their way to a Bible conference just like this, sitting in a train. and across them are two overdressed women reading cheap novels and as the train rides along the two men were discussing the Lord Jesus and finally one of the women stamped her foot slammed her book shut said to her friend as if we don't get enough of that on Sunday I think these men would have the courtesy not to talk about such things on a weekday the gentleman said to excuse me ma'am I wonder if I might ask you a question Would you be happy in heaven?
I mean, if just a few minutes talking about the Lord Jesus is so abhorrent to you, would you like to go to a place where that's all they ever talk about? That's why you must be born again. You need the life of God to appreciate the Son of God, to enter in to the fullness of what heaven will be. Heaven will be spending time with the blessed Son of God who loved us enough to die for us, shed his own precious blood so that we might be born again. O Nicodemus, you came to me as a teacher, rabbi, teacher.
Nothing rightly introduces you to Christ but your sin. When you realize you're a sinner, then you'll be interested in finding a savior. I only know of one. God's blessed man, the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself to save us. And that, my friend, is why you must be born again. Now shall we pray? Our Father, we hear the sad commentary of the Lord Jesus at the end of chapter two, that he couldn't trust man.
He couldn't commit himself to men because he knew what was in man. They needed something that they did not have, knew life from God. And it was not enough just to believe by rote the doctrines of the Bible, for the devils believe and tremble. It must be a personal commitment, concession of sin, turning from it to Christ and receiving him as their Savior. We thank you for the happy ending. But this dear man came out of the darkness in which he had come to the Lord Jesus, for this was the condemnation that light had come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.
But Nicodemus had the courage to step into the light a little further and a little further until at last in the blazing noon day of that scene at Calvary. He identified with the Lord Jesus, turned his back on his religion. And when he touched the body of the Lord, took him down from the cross. He couldn't take part in the Passover. He had defiled himself for that, but he didn't need it anymore. He had discovered that Christ, his Passover, had been sacrificed for him. Oh, we thank you for God's lamb, our substitute that allows us to come to God through him and have our sins forgiven.
And so we commend to the any in the audience tonight without Christ. Oh, God, what a hopeless condition. We just feel so sorry for them. try to suck a little happiness out of this world, just a waste of time. We pray they might come and discover what real joy is in the presence of the Lord Jesus. We give thee thanks now for such a glorious gospel to preach and pray that the Spirit of God may continue to work. We might have the joy of hearing of others who have come into the family of God, born again into his family, by receiving the life that comes in Christ.
We give our thanks now in the precious name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. Other obvious hymns this evening. Number thirty-seven. I'd appreciate it if the Christians tried to keep quiet and allow the Spirit of God to work. It's easy in these moments to become agitated and for the enemy to gain an advantage and so please continue to pray we sing this solemn hymn you must be born again we'll sing the first and third stanzas of number thirty seven A ruler once came to Jesus by night To ask him the way of salvation and life The master made answer in words
true and plain, Ye must be born again. Ye must be born again. Ye must be born again. I verily, verily say unto you, ye must be born again. I might say just before we sing the third stanza as the last, if there's anyone here, and you have questions about these things, and you'd like to be saved tonight, or you just have questions about the Bible, You be sure and come and speak to Brother Alan and myself, one of the others here in the audience.
We'd be glad to talk to you and introduce you to our friend. Now, we can't save you, and we won't embarrass you, but we'd count it a privilege to help you if we could and introduce you to the Lord Jesus. You don't have to speak with us. You have to have dealings with God. And I think you already know enough just to open your heart to the Lord and receive him as your Savior. But if you'd like to speak with us, We counted a privilege, but whatever you do, don't leave without the Savior. Stanza three. Oh, ye who would enter that glorious rest, and sing with the ransom the song of the blessed.
The life everlasting, if you would obtain, Ye must be born again. Ye must be born again. Ye must be born again. I verily, verily say unto thee, Ye must be born again.